Jan 19th Deadline Will Determine Fate of All State Medical Marijuana Programs

The current federal spending bill remains in effect while Congress works on a compromise, but the deadline of January 19 is looming over medical marijuana patients, employees and business owners in states across the country because it is still undecided if the new bill will re-include the Rohrabacher-Blumenauer Amendment that currently prevents the federal government and Department of Justice from spending federal money to interfere with state-legalized medical marijuana programs.

The Senate version of the new spending bill includes continuing protections for state-legal medical marijuana industries and patients, according to Politico. But the House version does not include these protections.

The House and Senate Appropriations Committees will need to come together and decide whether to include the medical marijuana protections in the final version of the 2018 spending bill. If the provision is not upheld, it’s an open door for Jeff Sessions to instruct the DOJ to start cracking down on all state-legal medical marijuana businesses and patients.